


made up the best parts of you

by maximoffs



Category: Marvel, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:49:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximoffs/pseuds/maximoffs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-divorce, erik swings by to apologize.</p>
            </blockquote>





	made up the best parts of you

**Author's Note:**

> because of [this](http://firstclassconfessions.tumblr.com/post/19340082771) confession. the title is from "love, forgive me" by sierra demulder.

Sometimes, at odd hours (4, 5 in the morning) Charles can feel it stirring in a place that does not entirely belong to him. There are glints of it at first -- sharp traces of light like the edge of a weapon -- then the feeling inflates softly and disappears. It digs into the very back of his mind, a dull ache, uncomfortable at most. He barely notices it between grading papers and teaching classes, taking in new children by the week -- children who have had to run away from their families, children who have been threatened and kicked out. He barely notices it until he notices it, the potential that it has to desecrate and blind, and it fills him, ever so gently, with a sort of silent rage for its selfishness and excess -- and then again, for its affect on him, this thing which is not his.

Charles stays busy. He does not let himself miss even Moira, because she is only the tip of the iceberg and he doesn't have the time or energy to claw out of cold water anymore. He teaches with a patience that you couldn't learn in school, and when Alex Summers begins to make the effort to cheer his professor up once in a while, Charles has the good nature to smile. 

It's difficult not to wonder how far away someone can be and still unintentionally project. 

Before the sun comes up, when it wakes him he lies in bed and considers shattering all the windows of the house by hand, one by one, and he doesn't do this. He folds his hands on his stomach and waits for it to crawl into a hole in his head. He names it. He counts to ten, pulls himself into the wheelchair, and makes breakfast. 

 

*

 

He should know.

By the way the energy in the living room picks up and shifts, by the air refracting against the walls, by the faint familiar scent, he should know. Yet the fact slips him somehow, curves past his body as he reads the paper and boomerangs straight back at the sound of Sean's voice by the door.

"P...rofessor?"

The damage is done, though, and with Erik Lensherr forcing into the room the ache sharpens, comes to a point. He moves as if going to sit, thinks better of it, and stands in front of Charles and the coffee table awkwardly. He has that helmet in his hands, some sort of misguided gesture or truce, Charles is sure. Sean -- equally as awkward -- stands by the door and prays silently to be excused.

"You may go, Sean," Charles says with a smile -- like nothing has happened. The relief is palpable. And then: "Are you just planning on standing the entire time?"

It slaps him in the face, the weapon, the white light. It is like running, Charles thinks cruelly, into walls, and it makes him nauseous almost instantly. He ignores it while Erik stands there and presses his lips together tightly. What he was expecting Charles doesn't care to find out. Maybe tears. It's unimportant. 

"You're projecting," he finally says, when Erik fails to speak.

"What?" it nearly comes out as a statement. Charles remembers, at that exact moment, what Erik's voice sounds like and quickly shoves the memory out of the way. He looks at him coolly.

"You're projecting," he repeats. 

Erik swallows and if Charles didn't know better he'd say he were embarrassed. _Sorry_ , he thinks and tries to take back before it's too late but Charles has learned to catch everything. It doesn't matter; the apology goes unacknowledged (not that it counted). 

"Not just now," Charles continues, because seven months ago he was left bleeding by the two people he loved and trusted most on a beach. "It happens often. Your guilt reaches me in my sleep." -- And like that, there it is, all the jagged edges becoming sharper. 

"I'm sorry," Erik says, out loud this time.

"For which part?"

"Charles."

"For which part."

Erik feels small and it is unfamiliar. He takes a seat next to Charles, takes a breath, tries to remind himself of who he is. For everything, really -- although that's a lie. For things not turning out differently, in his favor, because both men know very well that nothing has turned out the way either of them had hoped. Not for killing Shaw and threatening the lives of all those men. Not for his beliefs. Not for finding Charles one night in the dark of his room nor curling his body around him, not for the three kisses he pressed against his left shoulder the morning of Cuba nor keeping him up the night before. Not for the three words, though they must have seemed like a lie in retrospect. For hurting him, though -- always, for this one thing. For the rest of his life.

He sits and cannot answer, and then the next fifteen seconds are spent completely off-guard: first with a rush of fury (now it is Charles projecting, and it is on purpose) then with a crack of knuckles and skin (the bridge of Erik's nose, the inner corner of his eye) followed by searing pain, near-blindness. 

Erik's hands fly to his face and his head drops, elbows resting on his knees to support while he registers the shock. Charles looks equally as shocked for a split second, though he should know better. _You fucking punched me_ , Erik is thinking -- not in anger but in bewilderment (there's blood in his hands) and pain (something is broken). It brings Charles back. He's calm. 

_You left me on a beach,_ he thinks, calmly. And then: "You should go now."

 

*

 

He knows. He knows as though he has always known -- months, years from now the same feeling will cool and grow hollow, it will rot inside of his friend and it will rot inside of him. _You could have saved me_ , he hears. In reply comes "it was not my job to save you" and "when did you ever ask for my help, anyway" -- he has these conversations with himself. 

In the dead of night when they are both awake and he can feel Erik in the back of his head, persistent and desperate and stubborn all at once, Charles cannot tell who is saying what.


End file.
